Neil Critchley is a “horrendous appointment”, a “poor man’s Michael Beale”. Those and everything in between were levelled at the new Heart of Midlothian head coach before he had even taken a training session.

The pile-on had started even before his appointment when news broke that the 45-year-old was set to be the man to replace Steven Naismith.

Some fans raided the internet for information and immediately concluded that Critchley would deploy slow build-up play in a 3-5-2, with players out of position. Labelling him a “Naismith/Neilson clone”.

That was about 24 hours after some got excited about an equally unknown candidate in Per-Mathias Hogmo. That being said, Hogmo, almost 20 years his senior, boasts a wealth of experience on top of what Critchley has achieved so far.

Experience was a prerequisite after moving on Naismith last month, but the club's chief executive Andrew McKinlay pointed out during Tuesday’s press conference that the main consideration was a track record of improving players.

For Hearts, in the short term, it means improving the first team and climbing the table. In the medium-to-long term, it means developing players – both new signings and youth products – to be sold for profit.

Fans are right to be sceptical, apprehensive even, looking at Critchley’s recent spells in management. The less said about his time at QPR, the better, but he has a different view of his second spell at Blackpool than what the fans there believe.

Besides, there is much more to Critchley’s coaching career than his recent spells in management.

Forced to retire from playing at a young age through injury, he is much more experienced than his 45 years would suggest and worked in Crewe Alexandra’s renowned academy before doing the same at Liverpool. At one point he was considered one of the brightest up-and-coming coaches in England.

In his first spell at Blackpool, he led them to a play-off final win at Wembley and kept the club in the Championship the following season. Along the way, he improved the players there and helped flip new signings for profit.

There are also endless articles, blogs and podcasts about Critchley’s time in coaching and management, positive and negative. But that is not the type of information that would have been used to identify Critchley as "the preferred candidate from an analytics perspective".

That was how McKinlay, who has still not named the company involved for commercial reasons, described the new head coach on Tuesday. 

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Jamestown Analytics, which was used, possess highly complex and secretive models that are used for everything from identifying managers to recruitment and opposition analysis. 

We may never know the reasons why Critchley topped the list. Regardless, the club has decided to embrace the new frontier of data analysis. And it has to be all-in or not at all. You cannot reject the first result because you do not like the result.

The whole point of the process is to gain an edge by discovering what others cannot see. Often this is exploiting bias and assumption. 

The likes of Brighton owner Tony Bloom and his Brentford counterpart Matthew Benham believe they can gain an edge by testing and replacing these biases with an analytical approach. In fact, they’ve made a success of it in both football and gambling.

Fans reacting negatively to a decision is merely noise to them. It was for Benham when he decided not to renew Mark Warburton’s contract at Brentford when they were flying high in the Championship. Noise is something to be ignored while they apply their cold and calculated analytical methods.

Bloom and Benham did not let passions rule their decisions when it came to gambling and they have applied that same conviction to running a football club.

Every managerial appointment is a gamble – there are no ‘sure things’. Analytical models are designed to increase the probability of making an appointment successful.

That is not to say fan opinion does not matter – and the point here is not to belittle those with legitimate concerns. Supporters are allowed to vent, especially Hearts fans who have pledged so much money – nearly £18million – and have continued to turn out in incredible numbers amid their worst-ever start to a season.

It has been encouraging to see that there have been some challenges to the negativity: those pleading to give the new head coach a chance. The vocal Gorgie Ultras among them.

This has only grown as fans of other clubs have jumped on the bandwagon – like slagging off a family member only to leap to their defence when someone else joins in.

To add to that growing sentiment, Hearts fans should park their apprehension, at least for now, and back Critchley and the team versus St Mirren on Saturday.